Interactive voice response (IVR) systems permit a person to interact with a computer system. Oftentimes, a person contacts an IVR system by calling a telephone number associated with the IVR system. The IVR system provides a series of prompts to the person and receives a number of responses to the prompts from the person. The IVR system may permit the person to speak his responses, in which case, the IVR system may use voice recognition techniques to determine what the person said.
One embodiment of an IVR system includes a directory assistance system that receives calls requesting business listings, performs searches for business listings based on the received calls, and provides business listings as search results. One problem with existing directory assistance systems is that these systems treat each call as an independent call—independent of any previously received calls.